It gives me a great deal of pleasure as the Minister for Disability Issues to present the fourth progress report on the implementation of the New Zealand Disability Strategy.

This year all government departments, as well as three Crown entities, have reported on what they have been doing to implement the Strategy. Only government departments are required to report, so it is very encouraging to find organisations from outside the core Public Service such as the Accident Compensation Corporation, Sport and Recreation New Zealand and the Housing New Zealand Corporation, getting behind the Strategy.

In the first three progress reports I focused on what government agencies were doing to implement the Strategy. However, I am concerned that we do not get caught up in the detail of each year’s activities, no matter how excellent they may be, and become complacent.

This year for the first time the progress report puts government activities within a broader context. This report provides a snapshot of the overall issues and trends that are relevant to the Strategy’s objectives. It uses this information, including statistics from the 2001 Disability Survey and other recent research, to provide a baseline against which to measure progress.

The government introduced the New Zealand Disability Strategy because disabled people are seriously disadvantaged in our society. Therefore it is not surprising the contextual and baseline information in this report shows that disabled people have lower levels of educational attainment, lower employment incomes, a poorer general health status, less choice in housing, and higher unemployment rates than the general population. Disabled people also face barriers to accessing public transport and find accessing disability support services to be overly complicated and sometimes inequitable.

This situation is not going to change overnight. Many disabled people are caught in a cycle of deprivation, with low incomes and poor access to the support services and working arrangements that might allow them to move from their marginalised position in society. It is a difficult cycle to break.

However, I remain confident the New Zealand Disability Strategy provides the best long-term plan for breaking the cycle. What is more, I am proud of a number of key activities described in this report that demonstrate the real commitment our government has to ongoing investment in the systematic implementation of the Strategy’s actions and objectives.

Over the last year, highlights include but are not limited to:

• Over the last year, highlights include but are not limited to:
• work analysing the post-census disability surveys and the decision to fund a third and fourth survey in 2006 and 2011
• the introduction of the New Zealand Sign Language Bill
• the establishment of a major review of long-term disability supports
• the development of a number of innovative initiatives and pilots to help disabled people who want to work get into work
• support for the recommendations in the National Health Committee’s seminal report on the lives of adults with an intellectual disability
• changes to the rules of the Invalids Benefit to make it easier for people to move into employment
• the inclusion of disability chapters in a number of other key government documents such as the New Zealand Housing Strategy discussion document and the Action Plan for New Zealand Women.

It is important for government to maintain this focused effort alongside the continual improvement in our knowledge about, and measurement of, what works. This is why I am pleased our reporting process is providing more information and in this way can be used to help us collectively implement the Strategy. I intend to build on this approach for future reports.

I look forward to continually improving our understanding of what matters most and how to make the best use of all our resources so that, in the future, disabled New Zealanders can say they live in “a society that highly values our lives and continually enhances our full participation”.

Hon Ruth Dyson
Minister for Disability Issues